大象传媒

My name is Eric Shiner. I was born at Devonport on 12th April 1930 and I lived at Burnham-on-Crouch in Essex for most of the
war with my mother , Florence, and my younger brother, Colin. My father, George, was in the Royal Navy and he had been called up a week before war was declared.He had served in the Great War with the Home Fleet. He had been a gun-layer at the Battle of Jutland and he had won the DSM at Zeebrugge in 1918. Now he was stationed at HMS Raleigh at Torpoint, and later in the war he was posted to HMS Duke at Great Malvern where he was Chief Bosun's Mate, training stoker recruits in seamanship. We spent our summer holidays with him at Malvern, climbing the hills and catching frogs in the streams across the common.

As well as farming, Burnham was renowed as a centre for yachting. Many of our close neighbours had worked as skippers and crew
before the war. Names that come to mind are Frank Duce, 'Fiddler' Payne, Rock Cross, Fred Heard and Sam Girton, and there were many others who had crewed the 6 and 12 metre racing yachts, the cruisers and motor launches owned the rich and famous.

The 'phoneywar' had passed and our troops were being routed across France and Belgium. We were waiting for the invasion.
But school days carried on as usual at the Council School in Devonshire Road, except that we had to take our gas masks to school in a cardboard box with a string shoulder strap. By now they were getting a little worse for wear and most of our mothers had made covers for them out of material.

One night in early May 1940 I was woklen up by hand bells being rung in the road. The boat crews were being called out
but we didn't know why until until we heard the news on the wireless. Dunkirk was being evacuated, and many small boats went from Burnham. As far as I remember all came back safely.

Now things began to liven up. We got more air raid warnings although we didn't
see much action to start with. Then we did, as the summer holidays drew near. I remember one day around lunch time 5 of us were playing in the recreation ground when the siren sounded. We could hear aircraft flying high, and then the far off crump of bombs and the rattle of machine gun fire. I couldn't see much of the battle except for the twisting vapour trails high up. Then
from out of the melee I saw one white parachute floating to earth. We heard later that the radar station at Canewdon across the river had been bombed.

It may have been the same day around tea time that we heard that a plane had come down at Wick Farm. My brother and I got on our bikes and found a Hurricane in a stubble field which had force landed with its undercarriage retracted. There was no one about so we looked in the cockpit. There
was an alarm sounding - probably a warning to the pilot that his wheels were retracted!
On another occasion during a daylight raid a
Heinkel was circling over Burnham, getting lower and lowwr as it did so, and eventually disappeared low down over Foulness Island.

The raids were getting heavier and I remember one Sunday - a bright day, but with no sunshine - the sky was a very pale grey colour making a perfect back-cloth for anything moving beneath it. The air raid warning had sounded, and just after lunch I was outside when I saw them. There were probably hundreds of enemy planes in formation, high up, flying in from the coast
to the north of Burnham, probably over the Blackwater. As I watched the leading flight began to turn south towards Burnham and the rest followed. The whole armada turned 180 degrees and flew back towards the coast. I could hear the whistle and crump as they jettisoned their bombs, and
mother got us undoors. We listened to hear if the bombs got any closer, but the nearest fell about a mile away over Stoney Hills, and then across the 5 miles of marshes to the sea. It was a sight I shall never forget.

One day, during the battle, no warning had sounded but I heard the sound of a plane and machine gun fire. A barrage baloon, floating free was being blown by the wind across Burnham and a Spitfire
was shooting at it. After a few passes the baloon folded in flames and fell to earth on the marshes.

At this time, August 1940, there was great fear of invasion and father moved us to Plymouth where he was stationed, and at that time to relative safety. At first we stayed in a terraced house in a road off Mutley Plain but we soon moved to a bungalow which father rented in Chestnut Avenue, Crown Hill. We had moved about a week when the house were we had stayed received a direct hit one night and was completely destroyed. Most nights there were raids but nothing like the blitz which later devastated Devonport and Plymouth.

After Christmas 1940 we moved back to Burnham when the fear of invasion had receded, just in time for me to take the 11 plus exam the following February which got me to the Grammar School at Maldon, 12 miles from Burnham.

Then the night raids started - but that's another story!

漏 Copyright of content contributed to this Archive rests with the author. Find out how you can use this.